Week 13: Designing for Equity

If you were educated on Earth, you have background in course-like learning and you might feel the temptation to reflect on your making and learning as would suit a course. In the same way, just as you are susceptible to Earth’s gravity, you are susceptible to associate learning with courses. Instead, consider your learning in a way you might consider your learning after a camping trip, after a visit to the museum, or after a dance that leaves you sweaty, laughing, and looking for a drink of water.— Joe Dillon, CLMOOC 2014

As we enter our final few weeks of class, I encourage you think about your learning in the way that Joe Dillon so beautifully describes … did your hands get any less cold and sweaty as you got used to hitting the “submit” button on your blog? Were you able to find a way to balance your weekly findings with your need to get the laundry in and rest after a week of teaching? Have you made any new connections with students or colleagues that have propelled your thinking forward?

These are essential learnings and it will look different for each and everyone of us. There is no one way.

A key thing to remember are our objectives here at ED677: we have been connected learners in order to ground ourselves in what it means to teach in connected ways. We have also been working to critically examine what we are doing and why in order to support connected learning in social, participatory and equitable ways for all learners. And we’ve been learning new things through playing, creating and reflecting as a community of learners both within and outside of ED677.

Embrace what you have learned and wondered about throughout this journey and use all of that to inform your final work ahead.

Make

This week (start this work this week for sure, but it may take us into next week, tbd) … I’d like to try something new; a Consultancy via Flipgrid!

What is a Consultancy? According to the National School Reform Faculty, a Consultancy is:

A structured process for helping an individual or a team think more expansively about a particular, concrete dilemma. Outside perspective is critical to this protocol working effectively; therefore, some of the participants in the group must be people who do not share the presenter’s specific dilemma at that time. When putting together a Consultancy group, be sure to include people with differing perspectives.

Sounds like us, right? 🙂

The goal of this Make activity is to support each of you to get direct feedback on the project you are designing to take forward from ED677 that supports more connected learning and equity. We will use a customized Consultancy Protocol to support our process.

What’s protocol? According to the National School Reform Faculty, a protocol is:

Protocols are structured processes and guidelines to promote meaningful, efficient communication, problem solving, and learning. Protocols give time for active listening and reflection, and ensure that all voices in the group are heard and honored.

Over this next week, I’d like each of you to start this process:

Find a question that you can ask your classmates about your project to support more connected learning and equity.

Develop a presentation of 5 minutes on Flipgrid that allows your classmates to hear your question while giving them enough context for them to respond to it.

I have put you into small groups this week; respond to the others in your group and they will respond to you.

Our Final Self-Assessments

You also have the next two weeks to work on a final self-assessment of your learning and connecting over the course of this semester. I’d like you to take your time with this and integrate this into your final making process. (Please do not submit this to me until the final week.)

My recommendation is to take some time this week to review the performance expectations from the syllabus, the questions for the self-assessment (below) and then jot notes to yourselves about your work in this course. Put that aside and continue to work on your consultancy and project. I’ll prompt you again next week to return to this, update your notes, and then get ready to submit it to me, with your final project during the final week.

Note that these are the same assessment questions we stopped to work on mid-semester so please refer back to your notes then and also review your blog and all of the work you’ve done this semester to support this process.

Data Detox

As I mentioned previously, after working online for awhile, I’ve done a process of Data Detox to make my online environment more healthy. Over the next few weeks, as we work to wrap up this online course, I share the link again if you want to try a few Data Detox exercises yourself if you are interested. Remember to that Mozilla provides resources and activities for thinking about a healthy Internet through supporting us all in being a bit more web literate.

Gathering

Reminder that we will be gathering online again this Tuesday April 16 at 7pm and we will have two teachers from the Central Bucks School District as guests — Amy Logue, QUEST teacher and Instructional Coach, from the Linden Elementary School and Robert Sidelinker, STEM teacher and staff technology coach at Warwick Elementary. They both took ED677 and excited to meet with you all.